My Time in the County Jail

By Elliot Silberberg

July 30, 2009

MILAN — I did time in a Colorado Rockies jail 25 years ago — as a county jailer. The place was often overcrowded and the sheriff was a nervous wreck for fear of lawsuits. The main cell was built to hold no more than six prisoners. Sunday mornings might find 12 or more inmates snoring uneasily on makeshift bunk beds inside.

A second large cell had another small cell inside it, Russian egg style. That was called the Bear Cage, and famously once held the outlaw Butch Cassidy. It was for the dangerous prisoners and those with delirium tremens .

The forlorn graffiti scratched on its gray, steel walls were testimony to abject misery. It was also a tribute to the human spirit, given what it must take to write in those conditions.

Things occasionally got out of hand. One night the city police brought in an unruly drunk, about 25-years old. He refused to put on his orange uniform, so we decided to escort him to a single cell in his street clothes until he sobered up enough not to fight the wardrobe change.

Given how deranged he was, I went back regularly to take a look. Sure enough, he was up to no good. He had pulled the sheets off the bed and was knotting them into a makeshift noose. I called the deputies for backup. We went in and yanked out the sheets.

Not to be deterred from meeting St. Peter, he next removed his bootlaces, tied them together and tried to rig them from the bars on the high window to his neck. It was a flimsy noose, and likely to break, but unnerving all the same. We took the laces away.

Next he started fiddling with his belt. He was playing with us, determined to prove he could manage to kill himself. In his loony despair his only solace was revenge. “I know a way!” he kept shouting, like he had discovered how to turn lead into gold.

Obviously, this had to stop. We decided to go in and strip him so he couldn’t hurt himself.

There were five of us. Four deputies were assigned to pinning down a limb each. The fifth, of mastodon bulk, would yank off the guy’s shirt and pants. I was assigned the right leg.

Naturally, it didn’t work out as planned and a big scramble started. The guy fought mightily, as drunks will do, for his right to take his own life. When we finally immobilized him, I was the only one with hands free enough to strip him.

My adrenalin amazed me. His shirt came off, buttons flying, no sweat. My hands shook as I gripped the waist of his jeans. Beats me how, but I managed to rip the denim open and peel it, like a banana, right down his legs.

For a split second everybody stopped fighting, even the drunk, and stared in awe at the shredded jeans.

We hauled the guy out of the cell and into the Bear Cage. He tormented the other prisoners and me all night, screaming, “I know a way!”

When I came on duty the next night, he was gone, bailed out. The following night, he walked in, sober and contrite, to tell me how sorry he was, that he had learned his lesson and would never drink again. We commiserated on themes like how alcohol makes you crazy, how great it is to see the light, and the virtues of saving for a rainy day and living the good life. Wow, I thought after he left, a happy ending.

About a week later I was drinking a beer in a bar, close to closing time. I spotted him in the wild crowd and he spotted me. Looped, he had those wild eyes again and they were full of menace. This time they weren’t suicidal so much as homicidal and I was the only person in his focus.

He scared me plenty. I didn’t much care that his soppy contrition had been nothing but bull. I didn’t dwell on how no one ever learns. Surviving, not moralizing, was on my mind.